Indaba zesiNdebele Ekuseni - Voice of America
Indaba zesiNdebele Ekuseni - July 03, 2024
"1900 UTC on the Voice of America." This is VOA News, I'm Christina Menente. More than 120 people in northern India were killed in a stampede when a crowd at a religious gathering rushed to leave a makeshift tent. AP correspondent Charles A. Ledesma reports. "The crush in a village and half-russ district of Alta Pradesh state, local media, reports the stampede occurred as attendees rushed to leave, following an event with a religious leader named Baul Baba. Attendees Shukantala Devi tells the press trust of India. People started falling one upon another. Those who were crushed died and the crowd at the event was huge. Initial reports suggest that over 15,000 people had gathered for the event, which had permission to host just 5,000. Police of overcrowding may have been a factor. I'm Charles A. Ledesma. Officials with U.S. president Joe Biden said on Tuesday he will launch a public events blitz to push back against pressure on him to leave the race after last week's disastrous debate. AP correspondent Sager McGonney reports. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tells MSNBC asking about the president's halting performance is legitimate. "To say, is this an episode or is this a condition?" At the White House, he had a cold and a bad night. Spokesom and Karine Jean-Pierre spent nearly an hour fielding questions about the president's performance and mental state. "I'm not going to discount what the American people see or feel." He will meet this week with Democratic lawmakers and governors to do a network TV interview, visit two states, and hold a press conference. "We want to turn the page on this." Sager McGonney, Washington. Donald Trump's sentencing in his "hush money" case has been postponed until at least September 18th. The judge agreed Tuesday to put it off while weighing the possible impact of new Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity. This is VOA news. Residents of Kingston, Jamaica's Capitol, were preparing diligently as Hurricane Barrow approached. By Tuesday evening, supplies had dwindled, gas stations were packed with vehicles, and residents had been busy boarding up windows in anticipation of the storm's arrival. "We weren't about the storm, we're going to know it's a category of five and Jamaica, people are worried, but we're shopping and not being people and buying things, isn't it so?" Kingston inhabitants are accustomed to hurricanes, but the severity of this storm has heightened concerns. "Some are for scared because from Gilbert, you know, experienced Gilbert a month or two years ago. Well, this one is more so light, more dangerous than the one before. Well, I'm not scared because I used them and I've been too many." Hurricane Barrow barreled towards Jamaica as a powerful category four storm on Tuesday after battering smaller islands in the eastern Caribbean. Scientists attribute the storm's rapid strengthening to human-caused climate change. Israeli forces bombarded several areas of the southern Gaza strip on Tuesday, and thousands of Palestinians fled their homes in what could be part of a final push of Israel's intensive military operations in nine months of war. Israel's leaders have said they were winding down the phase of intense fighting against Hamas, a U.S. designated terrorist group that has governed Gaza since 2007 and would soon shift more targeted operations. "Welcome to the fragments of our leader, your welcome station." President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on his first visit to Ukraine since Russia's full-scale invasion. Orban said that the war is Europe's most important issue and recommended a ceasefire. Orban is widely seen as having the warmest relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin among European Union leaders. His visit is a rare gesture in a tumultuous relationship with Ukraine. Taiwan says China ordered Taiwan's Coast Guard against interfering in the detention of a Taiwanese fishing boat in what had seen an increasing Chinese attempt to encroach on Taiwanese territory. Taiwan's Coast Guard also repeated its call for the release of the boat and its crew who were taking from waters off the Taiwanese-controlled island of Kinmen on Tuesday night. Russia's President Vladimir Putin arrived in Kazakhstan on Wednesday for regional security and defense talks, the Kremlin said, as well as a series of bilateral meetings including those with Chinese and Turkish leaders. You'll find expanded coverage of world news and events at our website, VOANews.com, 24 hours a day. I'm Christina Menente, VOA News. Anguish and Confusion in Kenya after police opened fire on protesters. Julian Assange is a free man. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has pleaded guilty to a single felony charge for publishing U.S. military secrets. And protein rich lava may be a good alternative to meat as hunger grows in Congo. Onions, peppers, tomatoes and larvae. Inside this orphanage, children are being fed thick white worms known locally as posse. Today is Wednesday, June 26th. And this is VOA's International Edition. I'm Scott Walterman, along with Alexis Stroke. Anti-tax protests spread across Kenya, including this one in the coastal city of Mumbasa. And there is only today in Mumbasa, we have showed up in big numbers. We're not scared, we're going to show up today, tomorrow and even the next day. At least five protesters were killed in the capital of Nairobi as the crowd stormed the parliament building. VOA's Nairobi Bureau Chief Mariama Diallo has that part of the story. Police fired live ammunition outside parliament Tuesday afternoon. Eyewitnesses tell VOA they saw a number of bodies on the ground outside the building. Fires broke out in the parliament buildings after protesters made it past police barricades. Protesters had demonstrated peacefully near parliament in Nairobi most of the day to demand that lawmakers vote against the 2024 finance bill. However, the bill was approved on a 195-106 vote. We are protesting against government impunity. You see that the finance bill is something that is not going to make as Kenyans leave a piece. Kenya has seen a growing youth led movement in recent days against the tax increases, which the government says are necessary to continue to pay the interest on its high sovereign debt. Lawmakers made some compromises on the tax bill, dropping proposed increases on bread, car ownership, and financial transactions. But that was not enough for protesters who say the cost of living is already too high. The finance bill still needs President William Ruto's signature to become law. Mariama Diallo, VOA News Nairobi. Ruto said that the legitimate protests against the bill were hijacked by a group of organized criminals. Today's events mark a critical turning point on how we respond to grave threats to our national security. I assure the nation that the government has mobilized all resources at the nation's disposal to ensure that a situation of this nature will not recur again at whatever cost. All of this was happening as the first group of Kenyan police arrived in the Haitian capital to launch a peacekeeping mission. We come to Haiti because the people of Haiti, like the people anywhere else in the world, are in the 47 countries where we have served as peace support organizations, the people of Haiti, the people of Haiti, the people of Haiti. That's Kenya's National Security Advisor Monica Juma on the ground in Haiti. The Kenyans will be joined by officers from 15 other nations, including other countries in Africa and the Caribbean, as well as Canada, France, Germany, Britain, and Spain. Altogether, the security forces will form a 2,500 strong peacekeeping mission funded primarily by the United States. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has pleaded guilty in a Northern Mariana Islands courtroom in a deal with U.S. authorities expected to leave him a free man. In 2019, U.S. authorities charged Assange with 18 criminal accounts of conspiring with former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to obtain classified information and unlawfully publishing the names of classified sources. Assange, who is now 52 years old, pleaded guilty at the U.S. court in Saipan to a single count of conspiracy to obtain and disseminate U.S. national defense information. After the hearing, he flew to Canberra, Australia. We're following these other stories from around the world. The trial for the 2023 killing of Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio started in Quito on Tuesday. Lawyers for the daughter and wife of Villavicencio said they wanted the trial to focus on the intellectual authors of the crime. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's liberal party has suffered a major upset in a special election for a Toronto district it has held for 30 years. That's raising doubts about Trudeau's leadership ahead of next year's general election. Toronto is a traditional liberal stronghold. In our continuing coverage of the 2024 U.S. presidential election, the first debate takes place on Thursday, but it isn't the first time these two candidates have debated each other. Villow a senior Washington correspondent Carolyn Prusudy looks back to 2020 for some clues about what we'll see and hear in the debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. When these two last met let people know he is a senator. I'm not going to answer the question because the question is the question is one was a first-term president. I've done more in in 47 months. I've done more than you've done in 47 years Joe. The other a long-term politician people out there need help. The 90-minute matchup was filled with chaos and interruptions. You shot up, man. Who is on your list Joe? Who's on your list? Gentlemen, I think we've ended this unprecedented election. Villow a asked voters what they remembered about that debate. Oh gosh that was a while ago. I remember that Trump was, you know, a superior debater. Trump was obviously sort of employing these like very childish tricks, interrupting him constantly and Biden sort of wasn't really having any of it. The same political theater is expected Thursday but could be tempered because of new rules. In this debate a candidate's microphone will be muted when it's not his turn to speak. Yeah I mean I wish he didn't have to come down to that but I mean given the last debate I think that's a good policy or protocol. One of the more memorable lines in this 2020 debate came when then-President Trump was asked to condemn white supremacists. Analysts say he issued an alert. I promise. Stand back and stand by. Both men were asked if they would accept the election results that year. If it's a fair election I am 100% on board but if I see tens of thousands of ballots being manipulated I can't go along with that. I will accept it and he will too, you know why? Because once the winner is declared after all the ballots are counted, all the votes are counted, that will be the end of it. When Trump lost the election his backers stormed the US Capitol on January 6th in an attempt to overturn the result. Analysts predict this debate won't change the minds of voters who have already decided. Supporters of Joe Biden are going to dismiss his slips of time or his misstatements because that's kind of who Joe Biden is. He's kind of always been that way. Trump's supporters similarly are going to say yeah well he's just Trump he's speaking off the cuff taken seriously not literally. This undecided voter knows what he wants to see on Thursday. A lot more love I think to bring us together. A second debate between the presidential candidates is scheduled for September but that could depend on how things go on Thursday. Carolyn Prusuti, VOA News. The US Surgeon General declared gun violence in the country a public health crisis on Tuesday calling on Americans to act to prevent rising firearm related deaths and their cascading effects particularly on black Americans, young Americans and other populations. Over the last couple of decades we've seen increases in gun violence. What we particularly with the number of mass shootings and episodes of violence taking place in neighborhoods are seeing that the collective trauma now on our country has grown to really disturbing proportions. US Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy said the impact of gun violence spreads far beyond the staggering number of lives lost 50,000 a year. It impacts millions of people who have been shot and survived as well as those who have witnessed gun violence lost family members or who learn about it through the news. VOA's International Edition continues. I'm Scott Wolterman along with Alexis Stroke. Moldova started EUA session talks on Tuesday. On this occasion I reiterate anecdotally that Moldova sees its future within the European Union and we will spare no efforts to achieve our strategic goal of becoming any new member. Moldova's Prime Minister Doran Rachian, Belgian Foreign Minister Haja Labib, welcome them to the process. Your country is part of Europe, European history, heritage and culture. We look forward the further to further intensifying or already well established ties. More bad news for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel's Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that the state must begin drafting ultra-orthodox Jewish seminary students into the military, a decree with the potential to divide Netanyahu's governing coalition. Reuters correspondent Lauren Anthony reports that lawmakers voiced "conflicting views on the decision." Netanyahu's government relies on two ultra-orthodox parties. Both see conscription exemptions as key to keeping their constituents in religious seminaries and away from a melting pot military that might test their conservative customs. Leaders of those parties said they were disappointed with the ruling but neither issued an immediate threat to the government. Moshe Roth is from the ultra-orthodox United Torah Judaism party. The prospect of the military starting to draft seminary students could widen cracks in Netanyahu's increasingly brittle coalition. Some voiced hopes that all parties will work together on the conscription issue. Opposition parties have welcomed the ruling. The ultra-orthodox conscription waiver has come at a time when Israel's armed forces are overstretched due to the multi-front war with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israelis abound by law to serve in the military from the age of 18, three years for men and two years for women. Members of Israel's Arab minority are exempt, though some do serve. And ultra-orthodox Jewish seminary students have also been largely exempt for decades. The law for their exemption expired last year, but the government continued to allow them not to serve. In the absence of a new legal basis for the exemption, the Supreme Court's ruling means the state must draft them. Ultra-orthodox leaders see the exemptions as vital for preserving their traditions. The longstanding military waiver has sparked protests in recent months by Israelis angry that they are shouldering the risk of fighting the war in Gaza. Ultra-orthodox demonstrators have taken to the streets blocking roads and marching with signs and banners. The ultra-orthodox community makes up 13 percent of Israel's 10 million population, a figure expected to climb due to their high birth rates. Religious correspondent, Lauren Anthony. Senior UN officials have told Israel they'll suspend eight operations across Gaza unless urgent steps are taken to better protect humanitarian workers. Humanitarian operations have repeatedly been in the crosshairs in Gaza. And I think you know the number of humanitarian workers that have been killed. We've repeatedly talked about humanitarian convoys shot at and notably last Friday. We've talked about areas that were deconflicted, that were hit, hospitals, shelters and so on. Word that the UN threatened Israel that they'll suspend aid to Gaza came from two UN officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing negotiations with Israeli officials. More than a million of Gaza's inhabitants face the most extreme form of malnutrition. It can take months to declare a famine but a child's body registers the harm in days, damage that can last a lifetime. Here's Reuters correspondent, Lucy Fielder, with this story. Merged Salim, aged seven months, is one of them. He's from Northern Gaza where UNICEF says one in three children are acutely malmarished or suffering from wasting. Merged was being treated for a chest infection in the neonatal ICU at Kamaladwan Hospital in Northern Gaza. He was born on November 1 at a healthy weight of 7.7 pounds. At six months old, his weight had barely changed to 8.4 pounds, says his mother, Nisrin al-Khatib. She was forced to flee Israeli bombardment early in the war. I wasn't getting any nourishment to be able to breastfeed my son. There was nothing in the market to buy because of the blockade, and there isn't good milk for me to feed him with, so whatever was available, I would give him. I'd give him different types of milk all the time, but the milk didn't provide him with much. Gaza has the most households in the world at the most extreme stage of food poverty. That's according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, a global partnership which measures food insecurity. It classifies levels of hunger in five categories, the worst of which is famine, which the IPC says faces more than a million of Gaza's inhabitants. Israel's foreign ministry in late May issued a detailed statement questioning the IPC's methods of analysis, which it said omitted measures Israel had taken to improve access to food in Gaza. The IPC declined to comment. The Israeli military invaded the strip in response to the deadly October 7 cross-border assault by Hamas on Israel. The Israeli assault has destroyed swathes of Gaza and farmland. In the early days of the war, Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza. It later allowed some humanitarian supplies to enter, but is still facing international calls to let in more. The International Criminal Court's prosecutor last month accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister of starving civilians as a method of warfare. It will cast an everlasting mark of shame on the internet. Netanyahu called that a moral outrage of historic proportions and said Israel is fighting in full compliance with international law. Kogat, an Israeli defense ministry agency tasked with coordinating aid deliveries into Palestinian territories, did not respond to a request for comment for this story. It can take months for the international measurement system to declare a famine, but the first damage to a child's body is counted in days. A child's brain develops at its fastest rate in the first two years of life. If they don't starve to death or die from illness due to their weakened immune system, growth and development may be delayed. A nutrition advisor at UNICEF told Reuters, a safe-the-children expert said harm to the immune system and cognitive and physical development could be long-term, as well as to their ability to absorb good nutrition. In North Gaza, the main cause of acute malnutrition is the lack of variety in the diets of children and pregnant and breastfeeding women, according to a report in February by a group of humanitarian agent. Fatib said she couldn't find good quality baby formula or clean water to mix it, so she fed-matched various types of powdered feed mixed with rainwater or brackish water from Gaza's polluted wells. You feel sometimes that his chest is hurting him because he isn't nourished well. He has had diarrhea because of changing the type of milk. There is no improvement at all in the child's health. Ahmed Al-Khalut, the nurse who heads the unit, said much its infection was due to malnutrition. Susceptibility to infections typically increases after two weeks with insufficient food. Because of the malnourishment the child is suffering from, there is no immunity, so any disease that the child catches in the shelters where the child lives afflicts the child with these severe lung infections. Of course, when a breastfeeding mother prepares milk with this water, this toxic water that has accumulated chemicals over time, and also the rockets that are hitting the Gaza Strip and Gaza City impact ground water, it affects children's health. The plight of Gaza's children is part of a broader rise in extreme hunger as conflicts intensify around the world, including in South Sudan and Mali. International organisations reported that more than 36 million children under five were acutely malnourished around the world last year, nearly 10 million of them severely. Reuters correspondent Lucy Fielder. And finally, hunger and malnutrition are problems all over the world. In Congo, protein rich larvae are being studied for their potential as a sustainable alternative form of protein to meat. More now from Reuters correspondent Elon Rubens. Onions, peppers, tomatoes and larvae. Inside this orphanage in the Democratic Republic of Congo's capital Kinshasa, children are being fed thick white worms known locally as posse. Edible insects, including larvae, are increasingly being studied for their potential as a sustainable alternative form of protein to meat. And some say they could help address malnutrition in the West African nation. Around one quarter of Congo's 99 million population is facing a food crisis, and one half of all orphans are suffering from malnutrition. That's according to the World Food Programme. Kinshasa-based nonprofit organisation Farms for Orphans provides protein rich larvae to local orphanages to help feeds deprived children. Agricultural engineer Francois Lucardi runs the organisation. We realised that there was a serious problem of malnutrition and lack of nutrients among children, especially those under five. So we thought here's what we can do to solve this problem once and for all. Why not put in place a sustainable solution that's can address both child malnutrition and environmental problems. So we turn to insects. The UN Food and Agricultural Organisation says insects can be a rich source of fat, protein, vitamins, fibre and minerals. Some can be used either for human consumption, like in Congo or for animal feed in Benin. Farms for Orphans produces up to 660 pounds of palm larvae per month and provides meals to several hundreds children per quarter. The organisation received funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for its initial research and launch. Lucardi hopes to produce enough larvae to sell commercially to subsidise donations to orphanages. Her team currently supplies four restaurants in Kinshasa, where palm worms are becoming increasingly popular. The organisation is also studying how to grow the larvae and harvest the larvae sustainably in laboratories. But some critics say it would be difficult to ramp up production to a commercial scale due to a lack of adequate resources. Several studies say commercial scale insects farming could also pose food safety risks as some require feed crops that could otherwise go directly towards human consumption. Reuters correspondent Elon Rubin. This has been International Edition on The Voice of America. On behalf of everyone here at VOA, thank you so much for being with us. For pictures, stories, videos and more, follow VOA News on your favourite social media platform and online at VOANews.com. In Washington, with Alexa Stroop, I'm Scott Walterman. Next, an editorial reflecting the views of the United States government. U.S. support for Ukraine during Russia's brutal attacks is more than just supporting a close partnership. It is a commitment to uphold international rules and norms to defend democratic values and stand up to dictators, said Vice President Kamala Harris at the recent Switzerland summit on peace in Ukraine. Russia's aggression is not only attack on the lives and the freedom of the people of Ukraine. It is not only an attack on global food security and energy supplies. Russia's aggression is also an attack on international rules and norms and the principles embodied in the UN Charter. Ignoring the long-established norms of the United Nations Charter is a serious threat to global security. There will be devastating consequences if nations can succeed in unlawfully attacking neighbouring countries. If the world fails to respond when an aggressor invades its neighbour, other aggressors will undoubtedly become emboldened. It leads to the potential of a war of conquest and chaos, not order and stability, which threatens all nations. To counter Russia's destabilizing actions, Vice President Harris says the peace summit has the dual benefits of working to boost energy and food security and to ensure that nothing about the end of this war can be decided without Ukraine. However, Russian leader Vladimir Putin has put forward a proposal that does just that, she said. "We must speak truth. He is not calling for negotiations. He is calling for surrender. America stands with Ukraine, not out of charity, but because it is in our strategic interest. We stand with delegations from more than 90 nations who also have a strategic interest in a just peace in Ukraine." Russia's unprovoked and unjustifiable war against Ukraine threatens global unity and security. "The United States will continue to support Ukraine and continue to impose costs on Russia," said Vice President Harris. "And we will continue to work towards a just and lasting peace based on the principles of the United Nations Charter and the will of the people of Ukraine." that was an editorial.